Broadcom Corporation, the global leader in all things semiconductor related, have today announced that the Nintendo Wii will feature Broadcom Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies. This will ship out of the box and be included as part of the Wii hardware.



The Wii is the first major gaming platform to introduce Bluetooth as a standard feature out the box, eliminating the need for cables between the console and other devices (like the DS and we presume other Wii consoles in the same room?). The technology will also be featured in the Wii controller, in order to provide gamers with a fast, accurate and high quality interaction. The Broadcom Bluetooth chip solution also features "exceptionally low power consumption, maximizing battery life to simplify upkeep and maintenance".



The Wii console also includes Broadcom's single-chip 54g(R) Wi-Fi solution, which provides a high-performance wireless link for playing online or multi-player games. The Wii will also make use of Broadcom's BroadRange technology (this gets a bit complicated now), which allows you to maintain higher data rates further from the access point. Both Bluetooth and 802.11g Wi-Fi products operate in the 2.4 GHz radio frequency band, introducing the possibility of radio interference between the two radio signals. To address this concern, Nintendo drew upon Broadcom's extensive co-existence experience to optimize the wireless performance for optimal simultaneous throughput of both technologies, minimizing the possibility of radio signal collisions, blocking and other phenomena that could degrade the performance of either device. And thank the lord they did.

Good news for the Wii and good news for you and me. More soon.